Led Zeppelin had “The Battle of Evermore.” Rush had “Rivendell.” Since time immemorial, rock bands have made music based on the wizardly works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Now Denver’s Turambar is joining that hall of heroes with its self-titled debut disc (to be released Friday, November 26, at the Larimer Lounge,…

“Understated” is an understatement when talking about Tin Hat Trio. Listening to the ensemble is like looking through a keyhole into an roomful of dust-laden memories: Everything from the earthiness of blues and jazz to the austerity of Eastern European folk are spun into a swooning air of melancholy that…

Play the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks next to Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In, and you’ll see what a fine line there is between ’70s punk and ’80s glam. The Black Halos, though, have known all along. Since its 1999 debut, this band of Vancouver trash merchants…

Even though Matador is one of the biggest indie labels on the planet, it’s managed to maintain an aesthetic agenda that’s had everything to do with integrity and diversity, and little to do with cheap attempts at cashing in. But now, flush with the Top 20 success of Interpol, the…

Laptop emo? Go ahead and laugh. But while you’re at it, pop in Customer, the third full-length by Collections of Colonies of Bees. An extension of the defunct post-rock group Pele (which originally featured Scott Beschta of the Promise Ring), Collections takes its predecessor’s knack for computer-scrambled melody and tips…

Atmosphere with brutality isn’t an easy combination to pull off. But the Autokinoton makes it look effortless — that is, as effortless as a brain-bruising eruption of noise and menace could possibly be. After forming two years ago and undergoing a ton of lineup changes, the quintet has finally settled…

Uriah Heep woke up one morning to find itself reincarnated as two skinny Americans from Seattle who grew up on too much hardcore and Conan movies. These two men, drummer Coady Willis and bassist/vocalist Jared Warren, had previously served in a plethora of notable Northwest bands, including downright legendary ones…

Not many songwriters are able to juxtapose Sunday-school hymns with a modest proposal that involves feeding unruly children to jungle cats. Neko Case, however, pulls it off beautifully. The Tigers Have Spoken, her third full-length, seesaws from country psalms to indie sass as it channels all the rapturous hoot-and-holler of…

Eminem might as well be a politician. He embodies the dichotomy well: someone who’s fundamentally reprehensible as a human being, yet represents the worldview of a huge portion — perhaps even most — of this country. With Encore, his fourth full-length, Marshall Mathers once again excels in his role as…

Some bands come into this world fully formed, moving with fluid ease across the stage as if the lights and wires and racket of a rock show were their natural habitat. Constellations is definitely not one of those bands. With all the poise of a polio-stricken baby giraffe, the quartet…

You can’t throw a rock in Memphis without hitting some arcane bit of music history. For instance, when the members of Lucero, the city’s hometown sons, rented a warehouse to live and rehearse in while not on the road, they discovered that it was once a gym where Elvis Presley…

In his anthem “Living and the Dead,” road-hungry songwriter David Dondero calls his chosen vocation “highway archeology.” Add folk architecture, soul excavation and cardiological spelunking to that job description. Over the past half a decade, Dondero’s odometer hasn’t slept as he’s relentlessly toured the side roads and shitty bars of…

Musicians have the strange compulsion to dig their own holes and never find a way to crawl back out. Take Denver’s Bad Luck City: Its self-titled debut is a thick, mucky quagmire of piss, bile, mean spirits and whiskey-spiked backwash. Like the Mekons dunking the Dirty Three in a septic…

Take a trenchantly independent band, throw a major-label budget and a big-name producer on top — and the result is usually total crap. But Le Tigre has been dodging expectations since its inception, and This Island, the group’s third full-length, maintains its steady arc toward dance-pop immortality. With the help…

Sitting here at the chilling dawn of George W. Bush’s re-election, the politicized whining of a tortured rock star rings pretty impotent and depressing. And yet, on the fateful date of November 2, A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan saw fit to shit out Emotive, a self-described “collection of…

Not too many bands can open for Le Tigre one night and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion the next without skipping a beat. Yet after Olympia, Washington’s the Gossip wraps up its current jaunt with Kathleen Hanna’s grrrl-power electro outfit, the trio of Beth Ditto, Kathy Mendonca and Nathan Howdeshell will…

Audits, supposedly, are about as pleasurable as a tube of Super Glue squeezed down your urethra. So it’s funny that Audit in Progress, the third full-length by Hot Snakes (appearing Thursday, November 4, at the Bluebird Theater), is the band’s least pain-inflicting release to date. Not that it doesn’t try…

Few things in life are as fulfilling as loss. Really, people thrive on it. Sometimes, it even seems that any period of contentment we’re lucky enough to have is just dead time, a spell of suspended animation that lasts until some catastrophe comes along and shocks us back to life…

At this moment, Drop the Fear’s biggest fan is a grizzled man in an Army jacket standing on the sidewalk outside the Satire Lounge on East Colfax. He’s never heard the band. In fact, he’s never heard of the band. But he’s a huge fan, nonetheless. “Thanks, man. Thanks!” he…